RB, Marx and Marx and Engels

What went wrong? Chavez, do you want to take this one? How about Castro? Jung Il? Tell me why you’ve tarnished the name Marxism. Post it in comments below. From the way I see it, Marx was a humanitarian. He was a champion of the little guy. Why is it when someone tries to bring peace to the world, other people twist the message to fit their own self-interest?

It’s confusing! The good person’s name becomes synonymous with the message of delusional people who spread hatred in the name of the good person. As a result, many people shudder at the name Marx and the name Jesus and the name Muhammad and the name God. The people who butcher the original messages, however, aren’t the only ones perpetuating the misconceptions; the people who reject the original message because they can’t see past the butchered message are responsible, too.

Such is the work of hegemony. Derrida’s idea that people in power define language fits. James Dobson represents Christ, bin Laden represents Muhammad, and Chavez represents Marx. (At the UN General Assembly, the book Chavez recommended President Bush read is Hegemony or Survival. From one hegemonic jackass to another.) Marx’s message becomes “Ayer estuvo el diablo aquí. En este mismo lugar huele a azufre. ... En esta misma tribuna, el señor presidente de los Estados Unidos, a quien yo llamo el diablo, vino aquí hablando como dueño del mundo.”

What did Marx say? “In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness” (37).

People are defined by economic status. The little guy never has his champion because there is always the little guy, even after a revolution. The Tramp becomes trapped in industrial gears; he becomes part of the machinery. The fact is no form of government has successfully eradicated the sin and woe in this world.


Charlie Chaplin as the Tramp in Modern Times.

“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all the others that have been tried from time to time” (Sir Winston Churchill).